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Sunday, June 26, 2016

The economic toll from
the massive wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray, Alberta could cost the oil sands
industry more than $1.4 billion.

While the losses continue to add up, local councilors
have unpopularly voted themselves big pay increases to cover their increased
workload due to last month’s fire.

The Athabasca oil
sands’ community’s 80,000 residents were forced to leave and 2,400 houses and
businesses were destroyed.

The oil industry
estimated a loss of 30 million barrels and it is taking longer than expected to
restart operations because of damage and clogged pipelines.

Suncor Energy could
end up losing $1 billion over lost production, an Edmonton refinery outage that
led to gasoline shortages in Western Canada and restarting costs, analysts
said.

Paul Cheng of Barclays
said about half of the 1 million barrels a day of interrupted production has
been restored.

Councilors from the
Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, voted 7-4
to pay Mayor Melissa Blake and three of its members $150,000 a year to work
full time on a recovery committee.

The seven other
part-time councilors’ pay will increase to $75,000 a year from $36,000.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Walmart Canada has
taken its battle with Visa over what it calls high credit card fees directly to
its customers.

The U.S.-based
retail giant said that due to “unacceptably high fees” it will stop accepting
Visa cards beginning July 18 in Thunder Bay, Ontario and expand the ban to its
more than 400 Canadian stores.

Walmart said it is
trying to trim the more than $100 million in fees it pays annually for
accepting credit cards.

Visa stepped up the
feud with newspaper ads accusing Walmart of using consumers as pawns.

“Walmart is
unfairly dragging millions of Canadian consumers into the middle of a business
disagreement that can and should be resolved between our companies,” it said.

Visa said it
offered Walmart one of the lowest rates of any merchant in Canada but that
hasn’t been enough.

Fees charged to businesses
– generally between 1.5 percent and 4 percent – have long been an issue and the
Retail Council of Canada is calling on the federal government to legislate lower
rates.

Walmart has its own
branded MasterCard but has not said whether this might be part of the issue.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Soaring
double-digit house price increases in Vancouver and Toronto are putting many
buyers out of the market and are being called “unsustainable.”

Bank of Canada Governor
Stephen Poloz expressed concern for the economy as the average price for
single-family houses in the two cities is more than $1 million.

Fueled by foreign
buyers seeking safe havens for their wealth, the climbing real estate prices
have outpaced local economic fundamentals such as job creation, immigration and
income growth, the central bank governor warned.

There is growing evidence prices are reacting
to “self-reinforcing” expectations among prospective buyers and lenders that
property values will keep rising, Poloz said.

In reality, there
is the “possibility” that prices could decline in these circumstances, he said
while releasing an assessment on the state of Canada’s financial stability.

Evidence “continues
to accumulate” of a coming market correction but the possibility of it
triggering a severe recession remains low, Poloz said.

Year-over-year house
prices have risen 30 percent in the greater Vancouver area while Toronto prices
are up 15 percent in the past six months as household debit is increasing, the
bank said.